This is What it Costs to Keep You
by breathinginfireflies
Summary: Recent studies have noted a rapid decline in the dragon populations of Hoenn, and so the Association has decided to contact a few thousand experienced individuals (current or ex-trainers) who satisfy three conditions, and can capture, evolve and release the now abundant first and secondary forms. Warnings: OT-fic. Dark themes later. Some canon characters. Many queer characters.
1. Prologue

_Author's Notes:_

_Hello everyone and welcome to my first serious, published fanfic. My name is firefly. I am here to cause trouble and cloud the identity of they-who-stand-behind-the-plot, until such a time that a significant numbers of chapters has been reached and it wouldn't hurt my pride for you to correctly guess about what's going on._

_Anyway, I've been chewing on this for too long, so please do not be deterred. Welcome to 'This is What it Costs to Keep You', or TWCKY, as I'm going to call it._

Thick oppressive heat beat hard and unrelenting against the crimson wings of a lazy dragon-type, who stretched them thin and long to protect her trainer and his sister from another aggressive Sinnohan summer. The two siblings were walking along a baked, dense dirt path that wound through the stringy forests and old wooden farms of an older resilience a ways south of Veilstone. They were both dressed in strong, breathable fabrics for trekking, and had severely underestimated the heat wave that struck central Sinnoh.

"Go find your sister first," Lumine panted, high and mocking for the third pause in conversation. Beside her, Resko laughed for the third time, still loud and still humourless.

Several hours passed.

"…Are we even going the right way?" her brother asked, re-capping a green water bottle and twisted around to tuck it into an external picket of his bag. Lumine side-eyed him with threadbare patience.

"You know where Coronet is, you can fucking see it right there," she growled, and jerked her chin towards the large black and ice-topped mountain range that loomed far, far north of them.

"I know. But she's only going to be on one of the mountains. Shouldn't we aim towards that one first?" he asked, irritated.

Lumine had long passed that stage, "We can do that when we get closer," she growled.

"Might as well do it now."

"So ask Stanton!" she snapped. Gracia the flareon whined in concern, and stopped to lean against her leg. She took a deep breath and bowed to scoop the disconcerted fire-type into her arms, and let her pokémon make herself comfortable on her own shoulders. Resko rolled a minimised pokéball between his fingers for a few seconds, then pressed the button against his nose and twisted it quickly away to release a cloud of red energy. It materialised into a blue-grey bell shape with round red eyes. Lumine grumbled something unintelligible, and buried her face in Gracia's side, deeply inhaling her comforting warm spice smell.

"What was that?" he asked smugly, waving the bronzong down to them. Stanton obediently began floating lower.

"You're gonna lose your head like that, one day," she said, chin now resting on Gracia's back. The flareon yawned.

He shrugged, "You'll see," then turned to his bronzong, "Can you tell us where Remni is out of all those?" he asked, pointing at the huge Coronet Mountain Range.

A low ringing hum echoed in his mind before, "…No," the word deep and dejected-sounding.

Resko frowned, "What. Why?"

"I have tried to tether a psychic beacon to Remni before, at your request, but Carrow recognises it as a beacon and rewrites or breaks them each time."

"Aren't you older?" the trainer asked, brows furrowed.

"Yes, but I am unpractised in psychic beacons whereas the claydol is not," beneath the smooth tone there was a hint of something hard and tempered.

Resko scowled, and turned dark eyes to his sister, who blinked back at him, "Problem?" she asked, an edge to her voice.

"Carrow broke the beacon again," he grumbled.

She sighed, "On Remni?"

"Yeah."

"What about the others?"

"What others?"

"Idiot! Don't you ever attach one to her team? Of course Carrow would break one."

"To one of the pokémon?" he asked, confused.

Lumine bared her teeth and withdrew her own pokéball from her pocket, releasing another, larger bronzong. Resko's Stanton looked unmoved, but was returned.

"Ansia. Is Tanner's beacon still attached?" she asked.

The huge steel-psychic type tilted its body forward, almost like a human would incline their head, "Yes, it has not been tampered with."

"Strange-"

"Can you please track him specifically to an area in those mountains?" she interrupted, pointing to the huge looming destination for the fifth time that hour.

"Of course."

They arrive at Veilstone late at night, but with several hotels to choose from, at least two had empty rooms. Staying the night in the strange, stretched but thin rooms that really drove home to them the idea of a journey far more than just a trip, and both siblings spent the night unsettled. Lumine found a bar to relax in, and Gracia is happy to slink around her ankles and snarl away anyone who gets too close.

It takes them three more days to get to Coronet, and at the base they (Lumine) sigh and ask the bronzong to, "Just drop us off wherever the fuck she is. Like we'll be climbing mountains in Hoenn."

The long, metallic ribbons of the pokémon's arms alight briefly on the backs of their shoulders, and they vanish in a soft, thin wave of bright pink energy.

And reappear in the middle of a battle.

A huge onix, encased in a tornado of static-y pink energy, goes flying past Lumine's ear, and crashes against a far wall. Knobbly arms press against her nape, and suddenly the two of them are sitting in the dirt at the base of a large rock, with a familiar-looking backpack, a list and several different pokéballs are sitting. Their sort-of-missing sister had placed herself right in the middle of the pile, and turned to them, "Uh, hey guys? What are you doing here?" she asked, eyes wide with confusion.

Having knocked out the onix and removed the siblings from play, Carrow returned to hover just above the huge lake situated in the middle of the rocky chamber, occasionally dispersing bolts of psychic energy as various gyarados and whiscash appeared. If not defeated immediately by that, Jackal and Asio, a tall, somewhat dark brown stantler, finished the job, where they stood at two corners of the lake, equidistant from Carrow, who was directly across from Remni. In the water, a huge sharpedo attempted to lure a silky-looking dragonair from the depths, occasionally Aqua Jetting off to corral it away from the deeper areas. Tanner and Quil were nowhere to be seen. Several of the pokéballs sitting in a perfect circle already had shadowed inhabitants, and a half-written list of details sat in the exact middle.

"You got a letter," Lumine said, nonplussed as Jackal Thunderbolted a gyarados hard enough for it to careen backwards before sinking below the surface.

"…Like Raune's?" she turned fully towards them, jostling some of the objects on the floor, grinning, "I can go to Hoenn?"

"Yes," her older sister answered, as Carrow froze in mid-air. Remni half-angled herself back towards him and after a short psychic conversation he turned back, knocking another gyarados back beneath the waves. Suddenly the water went still, and the dragonair peeked out over the edge of the deep lake. Ice blossomed across the lake in a semi-circle behind her, and a quick, tiny jolt from Jackal paralysed her. The others set about slowly whittling down her energy, with Carrow methodically setting up Protective barriers in front of each team member. Jackal copped a Dragon Rage right across his cheek, and reared back in pain, a tail slap sent a huge plume of water towards Carrow, who deflect the Aqua Tail with a Psychic, and a jolting Thunder Wave missed Asio by an inch. Fully submerged, Nikko rained small Bites against the dragon-types underbelly to keep it in the shallower area.

"Yeah wow that sounds…amazing," Remni got out, focussing on watching the battle, "Hang on a sec," and sprinted over.

"It's gonna be a long day," Resko sighed.

After only three days on the mountain before they interrupted her, Remni insisted on going through her whole song-and-dance in capturing two other dragonair and a dratini, to make a more significant dent in the breeder-provided list. They finally managed to drag her home after the third capture, wherein Asio had made a fantastic leap into the water to stop the dratini from slipping away, in a moment where a huge gyarados had appeared out of the depths and caught Nikko fully in its mouth.


	2. Chapter 1

Several days had to pass before the recently obtained dragon-types could be shipped, and despite her grumbles, Remni had to sign off on their movement. Tracking pokémon shipments in Sinnoh was a pain, but at least something was being done about the recent issues in poaching.

"Shi!" One of the shinx kittens sunk its tiny needle teeth into the fleshy part of her palm and Remni yelped, jerking on reflex. She quickly reached down and pressed her thumb and forefinger to the hinge of its jaw, applying pressure until the blue and black pokémon's jaws eased open. Once it was fully free, she snatched her hand back and shook it, eyeing the bloodless marks that were beginning to redden against her dark skin. It showed as an arrow of indents, rounded at the tip and about a centimetre long. It was tiny, but average for six-week-old shinx kittens. She shooed them away from the brown-striped white tiled corner of their little fenced off enclosure, and placed the warm lunch bowl inside. It was shallow, but wide, and when she poured a mostly-liquid mixture of tauros stock, vitamins and bits of charred starly meat, there was enough room for all eight of the shinx to get their mouths in it. She turned to scrub at the inner sides of their small, elongated water trough, and unlatched it from the wall, then walked outside the old metal shed to toss the water into the dirt.

In front of her, a veritable maze of rich soil with everything from seedlings to fully grown plants snaked between a myriad of small ponds and other, larger sheds, butting up against an oval-shaped lake and the edges of a forest, before finally curling back and ended up at a large wooden house adjacent to her, on the right.

It was tall, painted mostly in reds and browns and had a farfetch'd-topped compass perched on the highest part, making it easily mistaken for a farm from the road, which is probably what led to the expensive-looking car rolling to a sinking stop in their driveway, which really was just a flat area of land leading from the road to the house.

She took a minute to shake out the lingering droplets from the trough and gaze at said house, a warm sense of comfort curling in her chest, then turned back to the lake and forest in the distance, where the warmth went flat and wary in her stomach.

"Who do you think is going to come out tonight?' she mused aloud, and a huge lion-like pokemon shot her a look from where he stretched against the shed wall, "You know new people always get complaints, which wouldn't be so bad if those complaints didn't involve broken fences and frightened baby pokémon," A psychic snark jolted across the outskirts of her mind, projected from somewhere in the house and she rolled her eyes. "I think we better keep both Asio and Laiza out tonight, huh Jackal?" she peered down at him, while he peered back, eyes large and red and yellow.

"Ux," he growled, leaning forward to place his chin on his outstretched paws.

"Mum's still talking about hiring trainers to empty the lake," she sighed. While originally just offended at the implications that _she_ wasn't a trainer and couldn't do the job, both her older sisters and brother her twin was still two minutes younger, whatever he said, suck it, Raune!) and her dad and her had argued Alaine down each time, if only that they promised when they moved to Sinnoh that they would keep their environmental impact minimal. In response, she and her twin had taught themselves a tonne of biology related things, and were always relaying them to the rest of the family, things like the rate of decomposition of different berries, the effects of having high level pokémon in the area as well as around babies and the reasons why they couldn't use pesticides. They had both been adamant that the lakes around them were the most important water sources to this area, and that any run-off had disastrous implications, though Raune had focussed on eutrophication while Remni had sworn up and down that biomagnification was going to mess them over, big time. They had been met with sighs and reluctant agreement, but once both twins agreed on something, and got at least two other siblings (fifteen-year old Rio always agreed, most simply because they offered to do his chores, and twenty-three year-old Luka always put pokémon first) to agree, then it was pretty much a definite. Remni turned back around to the shed, feeling bright eyes on her as she walked, and flicked her luxray's ear as she passed him.

The shed was close, close enough for them to keep an eye on the baby shinx, and small, to keep them warm. The floor was square-shaped, and the majority of it was taken up by the little fenced off area, which sunk into a small depression in the middle, where a towel-lined and hay-stuffed pile was used as bedding. The wall opposite her held bags of hay and other storage items hastily stacked and pressed together to keep from falling. Putting the kittens here had definitely been a last minute decision. The roof at least, was clean of spider webs.

"We're not going to lose any babies this year," she promised the large black and blue cat in the doorway, who was stretched out along the dirt and eyeing the baby cats with something akin to fondness veined with reluctance.

"Ray," he answered, noncommittally, and turned his head to lick long stripes down his shoulder.

She set about brushing and untangling the kittens from each other, cooing to the tiny shinx about how pretty they were, and that they had to be on their best behaviour when the people came to see them today. She separated them briefly into two groups, the five girls facing the three boys, and marvelled in the way their female arcanine broke the gender ratio year after year. It quickly went to chaos again as one of the females tackled the largest male, and they were messy and mussed again.

"That'll have to do," a tired voice sighed from the doorway, and Remni turned with a grin.

"Hey dad! You need something?" Jackal had snapped upright when Dante walked over, and was arching up under his trainer's fingers. Though he only reached the nineteen-year-old's ribs, he still had the peace of mind to stare down both of the humans and the playfully tussling kittens behind them. Dante looked unruffled, however.

"Luke and Lumi want to come direct the buyers and talk about the kittens, and I've really gotta help Tor and Bas move the hay bales to the eastern paddocks before sunset, and mum's got Tox searching the garage for spare tires, and she and Lucy are still looking for that burmy that keep eating the cabbages. Resk's taken Lahn and Ri to the shops, so you're literally the only one who can give us a hand. I know you really don't like strangers, but would you mind helping them get their car back on the road? You don't have to talk to them or nothing," he rambled, offering every detail in his usual, way.

"It's not that I don't _like_ strangers, Dad. They just-" her easy confidence dropped and so did her stance. Remni practically sunk back into herself, continually encircling her wrist with the fingers of her opposite hand. She couldn't meet his eyes, "They just make me kind of nervous."

He looked at her sadly, "I know love, and I am sorry. But they really need your help. You don't even have to talk to them much!"

"...You mean that rich family that just pulled up?" she asked, still not able to look up at him and just stopping herself from scoffing. Her dad had no such reservations, and snorted.

"Yeah, them city folk," he pulled a twangy, exaggerated accent just to get her to laugh.

She mostly focussed on the fact that she'd have to interact with a family of strangers, and when her hands shook a little, Jackal butted against her long arms with his head, rubbing his side against her and mewled softly.

"What's his problem?" Dante asked, furrowing his thick eyebrows above his bright eyes.

Remni rolled her own light brown ones, "The scents of the baby shinx all over the place, and it's…"she watched a familiar glaze start to cover his eyes, "-triggering protective parent hormones, so he's latching onto the closest thing he has to a kid," she said as he licked a stripe from her wrist to her elbow, and she swatted his nose, "It's weird, I know, but growing up and living with humans means he doesn't see a difference in species, except that we're incompatible sexually, like different egg groups," Dante choked at this, still not used to the matter-of-fact way his kids discussed all their weird biology stuff, and she rolled her eyes.

"Wow dad, grow up," he ruffled her shoulder-length mop of hair until she yelped and smacked his dark hands away.

"Bully," she mock-snarled, stalking away under his arms as he cackled, "I'm not even a mechanic!" she called back to him.

"It's science!" he answered.

"It's different to my science!" they were getting louder as the distance between them increased, neither smart enough to move towards the other. Jackal finally stopped behind her knees, blocking her from continuing up the path.

"All you have to do is change a tyre!"

"You suck!" they both laughed when Remni turned away, and the luxray 'lead' her up the path towards the bright yellow sports car. She revelled slightly, silent and spiteful, at the spots and splashes of mud on the headlights and lower halves of the door. A tall, slim woman with a sharp nose stared down the path, with a neatly pressed, conservative green dress, that reached below her knees in pleats and had white flowers embroidered on the sleeves. Beside her, a man in the beginnings of a suit (well, she assumed he was missing the jacket, she wasn't that sure about the mechanics of a suit). Three kids all equally nicely dressed fidgeted and fought behind them. For almost half a second, she felt a twinge of embarrassment over her jeans (which needed to be switched for shorts asap, the sun was up and she was getting uncomfortably hot) a top that bared both her stomach and shoulders, and a blue, black, grey and white checked flannel shirt, soft as butter from age that had been rolled up to her elbows. The tears in the sleeves were invisible because of this. The embarrassment passed- she wore what had worked for years and would continue to work for years.

She felt awkward until both adults (parents?) grinned at her, "Oh, it's wonderful to see a farm like this still going!" the man gushed.

"Umm, we're breeders, not farmers, er?" she answered stiffly, not sure if she should be offended or not.

"Oh, we mean that you all grow your food, it's such a good thing to see!" the woman continued. The kids had taken to picking at some of the unripe tomatoes, and something angry coiled up her spine. She opened her mouth to tell them off, but the man was already hauling them away by the collars of their shirts, "Excuse our kids, they don't like to get out much," Well that answered that question.

"Umm. Okay. My dad said you need a tyre change?" she asked.

"Yes, that would be amazing, we can fully reimburse you as well," the woman stepped up, fishing in her handbag, probably for money. Remni quickly raised her hands.

"Whoa, whoa. Let me just…see what I can do first and then you can um, talk to Luka or Mum about that. Has anyone gotten the size for your tyres?" she asked.

"It's um, just the one thanks," the mother answered quickly, and Remni suppressed the urge to sigh.

"Yes, but all of them are the same size, so we need to get one of the same size." she offered.

"I think A-Alaine, is it? Measured it. She said.. Nox would bring it out?" the father replied and Remni hoped she wouldn't be turning back and forth between them for answers each time.

"Nox?" she repeated dumbly, when a long lean and dark blue figure ran out of the shed. It has black stripes across its shoulders, arms and the rest of its body, and a large spherical red something beneath its chin. It was rolling a short tyre between the elongated middle fingers of his sharp paws. He was pushing it up the hill, panting very lightly in the late morning sun, "Oh. Tox," she figured, "That's dad's toxicroak."

She wandered around to the boot of the car, "Do you have a jack in here?" she asked, looking at the shiny amber colour in the light. Admittedly, it wasn't ugly.

"…Who?" the father asked, seemingly worried.

'City. People,' she grumbled mentally, and caught the tail end of a mental chuckle from within the house, 'Rude,' she answered the psychic-type, who merely chuckled louder. Outwardly, she asked, "No, a jack," she made a levering motion with her hands, "You know, to lift cars."

It turned out they did, and unlocked the boot of their car, which of course popped up automatically. It was small, clean and unused, but was easy to get out, find where it should be placed according to the instructions lever the car upwards. Unscrewing each bolt was fine, but the specialised one was an effort when the parents didn't know where it was, and the kids had covered their mouths and giggled like screwy little brats. She had to call Carrow, the aforementioned psychic-type, out to hunt through the car for it (her claydol had waved his arms and swept the car twice with a wave of white-tinged pink energy, and snatched it from a pocket in the door). Jackal proved infatuated with the old tyre, hooking his claws into the tread and nearly snatching it away, until Remni slipped a leg through the gap and pressed it into the ground, asking Carrow to drop the new one next to her. She dragged it close to compare the numbers along the curving, rubber side, muttering them to herself.

"200…35 wow not a lot…ZR yeah who would have thought-" that bit was sarcastic, "-14. Yep all good." she unhooked her leg from the old one and it rolled into Jackal's eager grasp. He rolled to the floor, mussing his fur with dirt and pushed it away. It rolled up the hill then back down again, pressing against his paw pads. Fascinated, he shoved it again, rolled it, then shoved it again. Remni rolled her eyes as she and Carrow worked to manoeuvre the six holes in the wheel of the new tyre onto the six 'bolts' on the car. It took a bit of hissing, backing off and readjusting, but with Carrow supporting most of the weight psychically so the breeder could turn it and push it they, eventually got it on. Triumphantly, she twisted each 'screw' back on, only tightening them once all six were in place. Carrow hovered beside her, silent and intent.

'The sharpedo is watching them.' he finally said, mentally, something twisted and upset set against each word, and Remni turned to one of the larger ponds to see red eyes set into a dark blue head with a yellow cross on the flat of it. The eyes turned briefly to her, and he lifted out of the water to grin, wide and jagged before sinking back again to stare down the strangers.

"Jackal, go tell him to back off." Remni called to the luxray, who twisted upwards, kicking the tyre down flat so it wouldn't roll away, and leaping down the path, legs going two by two and body stretching long and lean between them. He skidded to a stop by the small pond situated between a crop of sitrus and cheri berries and a miniscule pumpkin patch. He and the shark-like pokémon began growling at each other, and Remni carefully explained what she'd done and what they should do to the parents, who nodded seriously, focussing on her in a way that made her tremble and Carrow bob intimidatingly towards her shoulder. Alaine turned up at that point and she took over, ruffling Remni's hair gratefully.

As she moved away, her mother snagged her wrist, "Rem, love, you still going?"

"Yes! Tell Dad to stop asking me for things!" and she bolted for the house.

'Carrow, you coming?' she asked mentally, walking quickly up the path to the house. She watched Nikko bare his teeth at Jackal, squirting a thin Water Gun at him, then dodging into the water as flame-coated fangs grazed the surface, "Enough, you two!" she shouted at them, and the temporarily skittish luxray darted to the house. He skidded to a stop and squirmed between her and the doorway, flicking soil from his side and settling in the dirty entry, lying flat and facing away from the coat rack.

She snagged a pre-packed and multi-pocketed pale blue backpack and tossed it across her shoulders. Hesitating at the doorway of the bathroom in confusion, she then retreated back down the hallway to grab the clothes she'd set out on the edge of her bed.

Her skin was bright red from showering too quickly in too high heat, but the different shirt made her feel a little cooler. She grabbed a black backpack from the messy table near her mirror, darting a look into it- light brown eyes and thin, light blue hair that stuck to her neck in wet waves. The clothes, another flannel shirt (purple, white and light grey), denim shorts with frayed purple-dyed edges and a lace-edged mauve tube shirt that showed off as much as the earlier one were familiar and comforting. She tugged the hem of the shirt from where it was trapped by the backpack strap and turned away.

'You need to cut it soon,' Carrow murmured, hanging behind her shoulder as she ran out and down the stairs. She stopped in the lounge room and asked Carrow, "Can you grab Nikko and Jackal?" He paused, vanished, and returned, with two normal pokéballs dropping into her hands, which she transferred into her pokétch thoughtlessly.

Asio and Quil decided to stay and keep an eye on the farm while she went to see her friends- all inhabitants of Solaceon, and was delighted to find they had received letters. Risa gloated, obviously proud, but Alexei and Eti were just quietly pleased. Gammon and Crede, the only couple in the group were excited, but seemed far more interested in meeting new people.

"Don't you like us anymore?" Risa had teased and the two boys had to hastily placate her.

They wandered across the huge flat plains and grasses that made up the outskirts of Solaceon, occasionally dipping into the shaded forest areas when the summer heat became too much. A few of the farmhands in other areas were also relaxing in the shade, waiting out the heat in pairs or groups of four. Their rapidash, staraptor and kricketune were speedy but ultimately not very hard-hitting, and Keenan (Alexei's luxray), Ricochet (Eti's rampardos) and Twit (Risa's abomasnow) made short work of them. Tanner and Crede's Staraptor were happy to flit back and forth, and Jackal as well as several others wandered along beside their trainers. They decided to go as a group and split up into two groups when they got there.

"Oh!" Risa exclaimed after they found a pond, and had already asked the bibarel guarding it for its permission to swim, "I forgot to tell you guys, but Papa said that our pokétch's won't work there," she held up her right wrist, shaking the flat pink watch for emphasis, "We've gotta go earlier and talk to Professor Birch, see if he can connect them to Hoenn's electrical network and pc system. Otherwise we won't be able to store our pokémon in them, or make any calls."

"Damn, I didn't even think of that," Remni grumbled, though still paddled happily around in her top and shorts. The sun felt warm against her skin and the heat was thick in her veins. She practically crooned, and shirtless Alexei sitting on the edge laughed at her.

"That's because you can only concentrate on one thing at a time, loser," Crede prodded jokingly, and the two laughed to each other. Gammon splashed his boyfriend.

"Rude," he said and they laughed harder, Crede snaking out of the way to dunk the other boy, who dove so deep he was just a dark shadow in the water, his skin darker even than Remni's.

It took them hours to drag themselves free of the water, and they walked, sopping wet, back to the town. Tanner was napping in his pokéball, which had been returned into the pokétch, and Jackal was getting heavy-pawed beside her, eyes going a little hooded, despite Keenan continuously trying to trip him up. The girl's choked on laughter as he went tumbling to the floor, having parted with Gammon and Crede (who were dangerously close to sucking face right in front of them, despite Risa and Alexei screeching "Ewwww!") a couple of houses back, and Alexei has gotten distracted by a handful of wild staravia swooping his staraptor.

At the edge of the road to Remni's house, she got several cheek-kisses that made her blush and a tackle hug from Risa, which ended in them tussling on the floor until Jackal picked her up and pulled her free by her collar, "When are you going to get over this?" she asked him sulkily, and he just snorted hot air against the back of her neck, before freezing the (dry!) collar of her flannel shirt with an Ice Fang. She hip-checked him away with a huff.

"Three days!" Alexei called as they walked away, holding up the correct number of fingers. The two girls grinned as well, and they all ran back to the city.

Her mum and dad were quietly discussing something in the kitchen, and Lumine was intently arguing with Resko over the videophone mounted at the entrance to the kitchen.

"Wash Jack's paws before he comes inside!" her dad called, and said cat whined as she took him back outside. Nikko's bathtub had been dragged out as well (probably a mix of Asio and Quil's efforts) and she made him stand in it until all the clinging dirt came loose.

"His nickname is Jackal!" she called back in the front doorway.

"Well his nick-nickname is Jack!" Dante called again and she knew he was sticking his tongue out. She returned Jackal so he wouldn't soil his silky paws on the dirt pathway, and released him again in a flash of red once they entered the living room.

Rio and Lahnu sent her twin sulky glares from one of the couches, but she stuck her tongue out at them and ignored them, "Rem, come talk to us," her parents spoke from the kitchen and her younger sister and brother looked smug. Jackal padded in after her, slumping against the kitchen cabinet and lay down to lick his paws and smooth his ear fur. He grumbled something sulkily, but Carrow was sleeping in his pokéball in the watch and didn't translate.

It was quiet for several seconds, just the quiet rough noises of Jackal cleaning himself and the rush of water into a large saucepan in the sink.

Dante flicked the tap closed, and turned to open his mouth when Lumine shouted over to them,

"Stop being so dramatic! Tell Rem that she can go, for fuck's sake!" the twenty-one year old called, shooting an icy glare over Remni's shoulder towards their father, who snapped his mouth shut while Alaine scolded the girl for her language. Lumine rolled her eyes at the others, somehow making even the tiny, dismissive gesture aggressive, stuck her tongue out at Resko, who had clapped his hands over his ears and was now wincing, a curious nurse glancing worriedly over his shoulder, and their sister stalked away upstairs.

"I can...go?" Remni asked cautiously, waiting for the mental echo of her sister's words to pass.

Her father rubbed his neck thoughtfully, but Alaine was already nodding, "I- We know this kind of thing is important to you and, well...You told us before that you didn't feel ready to settle into a job like this, and even if he thinks it's fine-"

The man in question shrugged.

"-I think you should do something you enjoy. Sort yourself out and then decide, if you want to go to that Uni in Jubilife or Veilstone, or stay here or..or anything. You're too young to make this decision, Rem, go get older and have some fun while you're at it," her mother finished, slightly red in the cheeks but otherwise very earnest, eyes wide and hands a little fidgety at stomach-level.

"I-" she gulped, "_Thank_ you."

"I can't believe you left without me," Remni pouted a few hours later, part mocking irritation and part genuine betrayal, across the screen of the one video phone that they owned, and her twin pulled a face.

"I didn't know you'd get a letter!" he exclaimed.

"You still could've waited! It wasn't impossible!" she shouted back, then shyed away as she caught a few people looking curiously over Raune's shoulders. He turned to them and waved them off.

"Ignore them, Rem. Anyway, we'll see each other at the big meeting thing anyway!" he offered.

She considered it for several seconds, "…Travel with me when we get there."

"What? Why?"

"You always ditch! Travel with me for a couple of weeks first. You know Lumi and Resk are gonna leave, so stay with me."

"I don't want to hang out with your dumb baby friends," he groaned, but it was half-hearted at best.

"Hey screw off, and it's not like any of your friend's are going."

"Hey! I resent that! Jasper's here!" he answered defensively.

"…That guy you battled like twice and got the number of and never called?"

He glared at her, then waved her off, "Yeah alright whatever."

"Good."

"That wasn't an agreement!"

"It absolutely was," he glared and flipped her off, but she was already grinning and his actions were light-hearted.

"Eurgh, fine."

"You're acting like you have a huge problem with this and I know you don't. You _like_ my friends," Jackal wandered in at this point, and flopped against her legs.

They bickered and chatted for an extra half hour.

"Anyway!" he called all of a sudden, clapping his hands together, "I've gotta go and you've gotta come so," he waved at her with both hands, then closes them into fists and crossed them over, sticking out the thumbs, "Bye, sis!"

"What are you…" her heart stopped, "Um, yeah sure! See you soon!" she waved, hoping to make up for the stumble. The phone switched off, and she sprinted upstairs, passed her dad, who looked after her and called in confusion. She didn't answer.

Throwing open the doors of a cupboard in her room, she went rummaging through until she found an old scrapbook and took it to the desk, flipping it open and flicking through it. Jackal loped into the room just after she settled on a page.

"Ray?" he asked, wild with confusion.

"Raune and I used to try and make up a secret code when we were younger, like a twin thing?" she answered, without looking up, "And he just…"

On the page in front of her was the same odd two-fisted thing he had done at the end of the call, and just below it was scribbled three words. She slipped into the chair and leaned heavily over the desk, re-reading them and tracing over the picture with her eyes. Jackal bolted over in concern, and she threaded her fingers through the fur at his nape.

The page said, simply, 'Warning, danger, beware.'

End Notes:

Next chapter you get to read the letter! It's not that amazing or anything, but I imagine some people want to see the specifics of what these trainers are being asked. Thanks for reading! Please send feedback if you have something to say (especially about word count because I'm not sure what people prefer!).


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